


How Far We've Come

by KiwiBerry



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post 9x23, basically sad angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 14:46:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1822258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiwiBerry/pseuds/KiwiBerry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Metatron is locked in Heaven's jail, the Angel's have access to Heaven, but all Castiel wants is to see the face of the only man who's ever mattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Far We've Come

That day all Castiel wanted was to be an angel again. He wanted to feel his grace surging through his veins, illuminating not only his mind but his very essence; to be placed back among the stars. He wanted to understand righteousness and justice and not feel divided about what could be considered right or wrong. He wanted absolution and truth, not desperation and the deep, hollow feeling he got in the pit of his stomach when he thought about his future, his past, his choices--his mistakes. Most of all he just wanted to not feel so….human anymore.

But he was human. Oh, so, very human, but not completely, at least for the time being. But it would come. Eventually he would feel his grace fade away and the warmth of blood, and skin, and emotions pour back in it’s place. And then, only then, would he feel nothing. What would it feel like, he’d asked himself so many times, to die not as an angel but a human? He had done so once but he had been so fraught with pain and worry and guilt that he hadn’t savored the moment, hadn’t fully experienced that last breath of humanity that had filled his lungs. Had it been cold like the days he had spent huddled on the street, twisting and turning as his stomach growled with hunger? Or maybe warm like when he had been in the company of his brothers and sisters without the fighting or the friends he’d made; Sam and Dean? Castiel guessed it really didn’t matter either way. The irony was still the same: him feeling the last touch of humanity surge through him before he died. Most angels would never be able to say such a thing, to experience humanity in it’s dying moments, let alone comprehend how beautiful it could be. But then again, when had he ever been just some angel?

Maybe that’s why he’d asked Hannah to leave, to allow him to go back to Earth, just for a while. He hadn’t thought she would understand but something in the way her eyes closed told Castiel that she did, even when he didn’t, not completely anyway. So when he left, he didn’t feel that familiar emptiness course through him when he thought of what he was leaving behind. Rather, he felt a growing, tearing fear rise up inside him when he thought about what he was heading towards.

The playground greeted him coldly when he left, his shoes sinking into the sand and coat blowing with a passing breeze, and it seemed almost like a distant memory; something from a dream. It wasn’t until he spotted the familiar, yellow car sitting desolate and abandoned in the night, that Castiel realized it had all been far too real.

The car itself smelled of something heavy when he slid across it’s sticky, vinyl seats, but it wasn’t strong enough for him to understand exactly what that something was. He blamed his fading grace, his connection with the world dulling to a soft roar, a whispered cry. He felt his skin raise as he started the engine, the keys having still hung lifeless in the ignition. He didn’t like to think about it too much, but when he and Gadreel had left the car behind, some part of him had presumed that the car he would be driving away in would not have been his own.

Castiel drove.

When he finally pulled up to the familiar stone arch, the small, green door dark and looming in the night, he felt...not right . He had entered it many times in the past but this time it made him feel small, almost unsure of his own flesh and blood body; the sway of his hands and the hunch of his shoulders seemed slow and heavy, distant, or maybe strange? Maybe it was because of what he knew awaited him inside that he knocked instead of simply entering, the wood coarse against his knuckles. He pondered the notion of no one answering; could he pretend that nothing had ever happened? Dean had always been rambling on about how for some people ignorance was bliss, so with the little time he had left could he embrace that bit of humanity, just for a while, if he wanted to; if he chose to?

“Cas?”

Seeing Sam wasn’t as pleasant as Castiel had hoped it would be. He reeked of hopelessness and grief, shoulders hunched forward and eyes shining with something akin to desperation; a silent plea for the help he would never ask for. Castiel felt a twinge of guilt at that and lifted his gaze with a nod. “Hello, Sam.”

He waited patiently until Sam stepped aside and let him in, the other’s steps hesitant and heavy and eyes not bothering to look at him. Castiel had to divert his gaze when he found himself following Sam down the large, metal stairs and toward the table he had last seen Dean at, before they had locked him away for his own safety, before he had…Castiel sighed, his breath catching in his throat. They had been so close, he and Dean, sitting across from each other and neither realizing that it would be the last moment they would ever have together; the last moment to communicate anything they hadn’t said before but wished to. Castiel didn’t know about Dean, but he had been close, so close, closer than ever, to admitting a truth he hadn’t been sure he was ready for. He found out, in the end, that he was still scared, and, really, that was the human part of him that he hated most of all.

“Dean,” Sam announced after a moment, leaning over a half full glass and a bottle of scotch, his arms taut as he steadied himself against the table. Castiel waited patiently for him to continue, hands still at his sides but tongue thick with apologies and grievances he felt he had no right to give. Gadreel may have suggested the plan to stop Metatron but Castiel had been much too eager to go along with it, to use Dean as the necessary bait. The guilt clogged his throat and stopped his words, for which, in that moment, he was grateful. “He wasn’t supposed to...I didn’t think-”

“Is Dean…?” Castiel asked quickly, words trailing over Sam’s before realizing he couldn’t bear to listen to the answer he was sure to receive. Sam looked at him, stared into his eyes with nothing but pain and grief, practically begging Castiel to leave, run, before the reality could crash over him. But Castiel had always been persistent, masochistic in a way because of it, and it was a part of him that had been prevalent long before he’d ever pondered the notion of becoming human.

He felt the sudden urge to comfort Sam, hand raising to do so after a moment, but Sam only reared back, knocking over the glass and bottle of scotch, before leaving the room. He muttered what sounded like an apology before disappearing, something about clearing his head, and left Castiel to watch the dark, amber, liquid pour across the table, weaving it’s way through the wood before spilling onto the floor, creating dark puddles that he didn’t let himself stare into too long. He left the bottle untouched when he exited the room as well, reminding himself that no matter how quickly he may upright it the damage had already been done.

He eventually ended up outside Dean’s room, wondering if it was still untouched; Dean’s presence still strong and relevant. He wasn’t sure what Sam had done with Dean’s body but when he stood outside the closed door, the familiar gold handle staring back at him and recalling all the times he had stood before it wondering whether or not if, in those moments, he was the one Dean truly needed, he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. However, there was a sudden, loud crash from within--had Sam disappeared only to end up in his brother’s old room?-- and he swung the door open without hesitation, heart beating fast and heavy within his chest.

“Dean,” Castiel breathed, a whole spectrum of emotions he’d never encountered coursing through his veins when he noticed the familiar, slumped figure curled in on itself against the wall, head hung low and legs sprawled with hands limp against his thighs. For an instant, Castiel believed him dead, just like he had played out so many times in his head, but he heard Dean take in a single, shallow breath, his one hand shaking slightly, and Castiel was by his side before he took in the next. Why had Sam not said anything? Dean was here. Dean was alive. “Dean. Dean, are you alri-?”

Castiel’s voice caught in his throat, that centuries old feeling of fear and disgust rising in his stomach once more, and he cursed himself for not noticing earlier, not sensing the change, the overwhelming presence of-

“I’m a monster, Cas,” Dean finished for him, continuing to stare at his shaking hand as if the blade was still in his grasp. In that moment Castiel diverted his eyes and found a broken lamp, shattered into pieces by Dean’s side, most likely a victim caught up in the whirlwind that was Dean Winchester. He fought the urge to brush it away, to protect Dean from the sharp edges that begged to cut, but he didn’t dare leave the other’s side, not now, not when he was-

“I’m so sorry, Cas. I didn’t think that this...I didn’t know and Sammy-”

Castiel tried to place a reassuring hand upon Dean’s shoulder, but he cringed away, eyes flashing with an instinctual fear he probably didn’t even know he had. The eyes that eventually bore back into Castiel’s were still the same dark, brilliant green he’d seen countless times behind closed eyelids, but they were so dead and dull that he almost preferred them to take on their natural state; to become as black as he felt. “It’s alright, Dean. Everything will be alright.”

“But it won’t!” Dean argued, eyes wide and panicking, as if remembering everything: his visit with Cain, the mark, the blade, Abbadon, Metatron, Crowley, the overwhelming desire, the need to just kill. “I caused all of this, Cas. I was just so tired, so desperate, and I wanted it to stop. I wanted to protect Sammy. I didn’t want anyone else to die. And now….now I’m just like those stupid sons of bitches who’ve toyed with and killed everyone and everything I’ve ever cared about! I don’t want this, Cas! I never did, and I just…” Dean closed his eyes, his anger disappearing with his next exhale of breath, “I’m just so tired of all the bullshit, Cas.”

“Dean,” Castiel breathed again, noticing the way the other’s eyes kept flicking upward. It pained him to see Dean so helpless yet still looking toward Heaven for an answer, whether consciously or not. Those above would be of no help now; to them Dean was no more than a monster and better off forgotten or even dead. But Castiel knew differently, had spent years learning exactly how so, and because of that he couldn’t give up. All that mattered now was saving Dean Winchester. “ There is still some grace left within me. I can provide some assistance with the spell but Sam would have to-”

“Dammit, Cas, this is what I’m talking about! How many times have I let you die for me already? Or for Sammy? How many times have you and everyone else I’ve ever known gotten hurt because of us--because of me? I can’t save anyone. I never could.” Dean’s lips pressed into a sharp line, looking away as he tried to blink away the redness that swelled around his eyes. “Not my mom or my dad. Not even Sammy, Cas.” He paused, eyes flashing toward Castiel, “Not even you.”

Castiel could feel the frustration resonanting from Dean’s body and he hated that there was nothing he could do to soothe it. It took all he had not to walk off in frustration at the faint, mangled darkness that smiled wickedly just behind Dean’s face, growing darker and more prominent as the minutes passed by. If this continued long enough, Dean would-

“I won’t let you,” Dean said suddenly, eyes red and raw and jaw locked out of habit. Castiel almost wiped them away then, the few tears that fell, but he didn’t want Dean to push him away, not now, so he stood his ground, immovable, and became the anchor he knew Dean needed. “I asked Sam to use the blade, to end it before it could get any worse but he wouldn’t--” Dean’s gaze fell to the discarded blade resting beside him, the jagged teeth facing inward as if ready to consume him the moment he took hold. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

Castiel felt yet another wave of fear wash over him but, before he could think about it, he grabbed the blade quickly, hot and vile beneath his skin, and placed it behind him and hopefully out of Dean’s sight. He sighed then, using both his hands to gently steer Dean’s attention back to himself, “Dean. You are a good hunter, and an even better man. Do not blame yourself. You’ve had far too much asked of you and I am sorry it took this long for any of us to realize that, but we can fix this.” Castiel felt a small smile tug on his lips, bittersweet memories of a time when he himself felt lost, unsure and alone. He owed it to Dean to return what he had given him so many years ago: a second chance; hope. “ And, please, do not tell me that it is not broken.”

A moment of silence passed before Dean laughed, a small, quiet laugh that made Castiel smile, tears streaming down his face as he searched Cas’, so lost that Castiel had to wonder if he looked hard enough, could he still find that bright and pure soul he had saved from Hell so many years ago?

“Cas,” Dean breathed, voice catching in his throat as he leaned into Castiel’s space, gripping the other’s coat tight and burying his face into it, body shaking with quiet sobs. Castiel allowed him, trying his best not to show how shaken up he was as well, how much this vulnerable side of Dean scared him because he had never seen it before, never experienced it so personally. What Castiel felt at that moment was unmistakably fear but as he pulled Dean closer and felt the other’s body sink into his own, he knew they would fix this. He had to, even if it cost him everything.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure whether I'm going to let this stand alone or possibly add on? I have an idea of how I can expand this but we'll see. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
